


Malleable

by Avengerz



Category: Black Panther (2018), Black Panther (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, Comic Book Science, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-24 12:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7508332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avengerz/pseuds/Avengerz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt on <a>ImagineIronPanther</a>: “Could i request something where for some reason or another Tony's been mind whammied/brain washed/magicked into working for the bad guy, and T'Challa manages to break it with the POWER OF LOVE™”</p><p> </p><p>
  <i>The figure freezes, masked eyes locked on his. The Mechanic watches in bemusement as metal claws retract back into the leather gloves and the figure slowly steps closer to him. “Tony?” it says.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The Mechanic frowns. "Who?"</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
Tony’s not taken during a battle. He’s not taken during in the middle of the night, after a gala, on some lonely New York street. He’s not taken after yet another UN session, or after another shout out with Ross, or on one of his many flights to and from Wakanda. **  
**

He’s taken after a two-day binge in the lab, when the combined efforts of Friday and Rhodey force him up into the world of the living. He’s taken in sweats and a pair of sunglasses, a hat pulled low over his face as he visits the best coffee shop in all of New York. He’s taken surprised and unprepared by a squad of heavily armed and nondescript soldiers on a bright city street. He’s taken with a fight, with a flail of fists and feet, but he is taken.

Half a world away, T’Challa hears the news and the plastic phone cracks in his white-knuckled grip.

* * *

 

Tony wakes slowly, a mounting awareness of pain drawing him up from the sweet abyss of unconsciousness. He moans softly as pain spikes behind his temples, a relentless pounding in time with his heartbeat. For a time that is his only reality, the violent throbbing of his head and a cold, hard floor beneath him. Tony shudders and curls in on himself, cognizant now of a muttered conversation above his head. The words are too hard to make out through the fog of his thoughts, so he doesn’t try.

The floor below him abruptly jerks up and down, agony spikes again in his head, and Tony groans. He’s unfortunately familiar with waking up with headaches, and this is starting to feel like a leftover from his college days: late nights and alcohol and dubiously legal drugs. That’s not possible, though. Tony’s been sober for over a year now, off of drugs for decades, and he knows he wouldn’t have broken his promise to T’Challa.

It’s starting to add up in Tony’s muddled brain, and he’s not liking the answer he’s getting.

“I think his highness is waking up,” a gruff, unfamiliar voice says from above him, and Tony groans again. He’s really not liking what this is adding up to.

Something hard slams into his gut and Tony curls around himself, choking and gasping. Laughter, raucous and hell on his aching head, sounds from around him.

“Yeah, he’s definitely awake.” There’s rough, calloused fingers on his face, then a piece of cloth Tony hadn’t even noticed is ripped away from his eyes.

He hisses and blinks in the light, dim though it is, and another round of laughter accompanies the instinctive tears that spring to his eyes. “Oh, is the baby gonna cry? Poor baby.”

Tony growls and squints out into his surroundings. He’s in a vehicle of some sort, he realizes pretty quickly, a van or truck. He’s on the floor, unbound but surrounded by benches hosting half a dozen heavily-armed goons. They’ve got masks on, but Tony doesn’t need to see their faces to know who they are. The tentacled skull on their shoulders identifies them well enough.

“Oh my god,” he groans, in pain and now thoroughly annoyed. “How many times do we have to defeat you guys before you stay dead?”

He gets another boot to the ribs for his troubles, hard and painful just below the reactor scars. “Knock it off,” someone yells from the front seat. “The boss wants him unharmed. For now.” The men chuckle at that. Tony pulls his knees up to his chest and watches them all warily, but they stay silent and still for the rest of the ride, no matter what Tony says to provoke them.

He doesn’t know where they are or where they’re going. He’s unarmed and trapped in a moving metal box with half a dozen soldiers. As much as Tony would like to bust out of there before anything truly unpleasant occurred, it looks like he’ll have to wait for a better opportunity.

The opportunity doesn’t come when they finally arrive at their destination. Sure, Tony tries to make a run for it as they unload him from the van, twisting and yanking desperately out of two of the goons’ hold, but he only makes it a few feet away before he feels two sharp pinches on his back. Then electricity crackles through him, burning through his every vein, and Tony collapses with a stuttered moan.

They drag him inside as Tony shakes and shudders and tries to stay conscious. His eyes aren’t cooperating, but Tony gets a blurred view of a forest and a small wooden shack before they step into the building. He isn’t very surprised to see that the walls of the seemingly dilapidated shack is enforced with several inches of titanium and the floor is dominated by the gaping maw of a descending staircase.

Tony loses time for a bit as he’s man-handled down the stairs and through a labyrinth of brightly lit corridors. When he comes back to himself, He’s strapped to a metal chair, cold cuffs around his wrists and ankles. The room is otherwise empty and bare of all but a hanging lightbulb and a grate in the middle of the floor. This does not bode well for him.

There’s a scraping sound of a bolt being drawn back, and Tony watches as the heavy steel door in front of him swings open. Tony blinks at the unfamiliar woman in the doorway. “Well, I suppose I have to give you points for the taser,” he says, because he always talks, “but your interior design really needs some work.”

The woman doesn’t laugh as he steps further into the room. “Do you know who I am, Mr. Stark?”

Tony runs an assessing gaze over her face - dark hair, light brown skin, classically pretty - and shakes his head. “Nope, can’t say that I recognize you. Sorry, I promise our night together was still meaningful.”

“My name is Valentina,” she says calmly, “although you may know me by my new title: Madame Hydra.”

Tony grimaces. He’d been hoping the rumors of a new leader in Hydra-town were just that, but it seems they had some base in reality. “Okay, great, you’re leading Hydra now, whoopdy-doo. Why do you want me here? It’s not like I’m going to help you.”

“Oh, we’re aware of that, Mr. Stark.” She’s smiling, and Tony doesn’t like it. “You are a very difficult man to sway. Money, blackmail, torture - nothing can persuade you to betray your friends or your country.”

“Yeah,” Tony draws out the word with a frown. “Where are you going with this?”

Valentina begins to pace around him. “You are familiar, I know, with the Winter Soldier.” Oh, this really does not bode well for Tony. “It was one of Hydra’s greatest successes in capturing and controlling a former enemy. But such brute tactics as we used on Sergeant Barnes will be worthless to control you, Mr. Stark. So we pushed the boundaries of all known science to create a method just for you.”

“Yay?”

“We need your mind, Mr. Stark.” She’s behind him now, and Tony’s man enough to admit that he’s scared. “And we will have it.”

There’s a sharp pinch at the vein of his neck and everything goes black.

* * *

 

For four long months, they can find nothing. Even with the combined forces of Stark Industries, the remnants of the Avengers, and the entire country of Wakanda, all they have is abandoned bases they find too late and a growing sense of despair.

“He’s Tony Stark,” Rhodey says when they hit the three month mark. “Hydra’s got nothing against him.” T’Challa nods stiffly and resists the urge to punch the wall.

It’s affecting his leadership skills, he knows. He’s too distracted during meetings and he doesn’t have time to visit the country every week like he used to. No one blames him for it, but he knows Wakanda deserves better. He finds Shuri in the garden after a stilted meeting with the Chinese Ambassadors. She hugs him, as she always does when she sees him nowadays, and T’Challa ducks his head into her shoulder and takes comfort in her floral smell and her strong arms around him.

“We’ll find him,” she says, low and confident, the way she always does when she sees him nowadays. T’Challa nods against her shoulder before stepping back.

“I need you to take over ruling,” he says. “Just until- just until we find him.”

Shuri nods, but she can’t quite hide the concern on her features. “Okay, _ubuti_.”

T’Challa nods and returns to an abandoned conference room and a dozen worthless maps. “We will find you, _sithandwa_ ,” he swears, fierce in an empty room. “Just hold on.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't ask me to explain the science in this fic.

The Mechanic flinches minutely as something is slammed down onto the metal table in front of him. “Fix it,” someone - Jack Rollins, 32 years old, former SHIELD infiltrator, leader of Hydra Strike Team #2 - says roughly. The Mechanic nods, eyes averted, and bends over the gun. It’s easy enough to work with, one of the Aphonic line he’d started working on a few weeks ago. Was it weeks? Months? Time moves so strangely here, in his muddled brain and the half a dozen bases they’ve visited. Sometimes the Mechanic wonders why he can’t remember anything beyond the last month or so of his life.

It hurts to think about, hurts to try to remember, and something is screaming high and long and desperate deep inside of him-

His hands have stilled on the gun, and Rollins cuffs him none-too-gently around the back of the head. “What are you stopping for?”

The desperation splinters, his confusion and fear washed away by a wave of chemical calm.

The Mechanic hunches his shoulders, mumbles a “sorry, sir,” and gets back to work.

 

* * *

 

“What the fuck was that?” Sam sheds his mangled wings just inside the doorway, clearly furious, and paces into the conference room. The rest of the team shuffles in behind him, expressions ranging from frustrated to exhausted to just as angry. “No, seriously,” Sam says again, and whirls around to face the rest of them, “when the hell did Hydra get weaponry like that?”

Rhodey sighs heavily and lowers himself carefully into a chair, his prosthetics whirring with the action. “I don’t know, and unless anyone has any bright ideas on how to combat attacks literally made out of sound waves, I think we might be in trouble.”

Natasha speaks up, expression tight as she clutches at her injured shoulder. “Tony would know what to do.”

The room falls silent as everyone carefully avoids each other’s gazes. They all blame themselves for Tony’s abduction, one way or another. His loss encouraged them to put aside their differences to work together as a united team of New Avengers, but here they are, six months later, with still no clue as to where the man could be. They fight Hydra whenever the organization rears its ugly heads and do their best to track down long-cold leads. Hope is hard to hold onto, though, and between constant battles and training, all of their search efforts have begun to wane.

All save T’Challa’s.

Steve glances at the king, slumped at the head of the conference table. He is silent, his face drawn tight with pain and exhaustion. He’d taken a hit during the battle, Steve knows, but he also knows that isn’t the source of his pain.

“We will find him.” It’s Wanda, surprisingly, who provides the burst of encouragement. “Natasha and I are following a lead to Russia tomorrow. With our skills, we will surely learn something.” Bucky looks up from examining his arm - a needless endeavor, as the vibranium Wakanda’s scientists had used to build it won’t break - and clears his throat. “I’ll come with you.” Steve regards his best friend without much surprise. Bucky had taken Tony’s abduction surprisingly personally, and Steve thinks that Bucky knows better than all of them what Tony is going through.

“I will accompany you as well,” T’challa says, although he doesn’t look up from the dark wood of the table. This isn’t a surprise either. Steve isn’t sure, still, what exactly Tony and T’Challa had been to each other, but he knows that the king insists on joining each search personally, and that each time he comes back looking more exhausted.

“Good luck,” Steve says. T’Challa just nods wearily.

 

* * *

 

 This is new. The light above the door flashes, and the Mechanic steps back against the far wall, his hands empty. Two men step in, wrapped in his pseudo-Kevlar protective vests and carrying his guns. This is definitely new. They don’t bring weapons when they visit him, not anymore.

The Mechanic remembers, vaguely, screaming and struggling in their grip, jerking away from his daily injections, spitting insults, fuck you, fuck you, they’ll come for me, they’ll come- Pain flashes through his temples, and the memory dissipates.

He breathes slowly as the chemicals in his brain balance, endorphins rushing to wipe away the faint feeling of discontent. The men step forward, their boots heavy and loud against the concrete cell of his cell.

“You’re coming with us,” one says, muffled behind his facemask, and grabs the Mechanic roughly by the arm. He follows placidly as they yank him out into the hallway. The force is unnecessary, the Mechanic doesn’t try to fight them.

He could though, some part of him knows. He’s strong, now, he can lift engine blocks, he can bend metal with his bare hands.

A rush of warm heat through his head, and he loses his train of thought.

The men are dragging him down the hallway, sandwiched between them down the oddly empty corridors. The Mechanic keeps pace with them, mind blissfully blank as he regards the flashing red lights on the ceiling. He thinks he should know what they mean.

The Mechanic listens in a sort of detached interest as the men bark orders into their comm units, receive orders of their own. They’re going to the hangar, he gathers. They’re leaving.

This has happened before, once or twice. They’ve moved him, but then it was calm and orderly and a scientist stands by with his injections.

This is new.

It’s not his place to question these men, though, so the Mechanic doesn’t, just follows them quickly down hallway after winding hallway, ignoring the few panicked soldiers they pass. Then, a few turns away from the hangar, a bullet digs into the plaster a few inches from one of the Hydra agent’s heads. He jerks back with a startled shout, dragging the Mechanic to a halt along with him.

The Mechanic runs an assessing gaze over the mark in the plaster. .25 millimeter, lead round nose, an old Stark Industries model. No. The Mechanic cocks his head, confused. This model can’t be more than half a year old, but Stark Industries shut down weapons manufacturing years ago. Why does this new gun bear all the hallmarks of a Stark gun?

He is jerked out of his musings as a woman rounds the corner in front of them. She is dressed in a black protective body suit and carrying two pistols, and that’s all that the Mechanic can register before the men to each side of him drop like cut marionettes, perfectly round holes in their foreheads and a quickly spreading pool of blood beneath them.

The Mechanic examines the blood that laps against his nondescript black shoes, then looks up at the woman. She has frozen, for some reason, green eyes wide under a fringe of red hair.

Slowly, she lowers the guns to her side.

The Mechanic stares at her.

She stares back.

He does not know what to do.

“Tony,” she says, low and questioning. That is not an order, so the Mechanic does not reply.

She steps closer and says again, more confidently, “Tony.”

He does not know what to do.

The woman’s gaze flicks over his face, over the blood splatter he can feel drying near his temple and the growing panic in his eyes, and her face hardens. “You’re coming with me,” she says, harsh but not cruel, and the Mechanic frowns.

This is not his handler. This woman just killed agents of Hydra. This woman is an enemy of Hydra.

She steps forward again, and her hair bobs with the movement, red strands brushing over her pale forehead, and he knows that, for a moment, knows how those strands feel between his fingers after a long battle, knows how her hair will brush against him when they’re collapsed on the couch in the middle of the night, together because they cannot be alone, he knows how that hair bends as he braids it with dexterous fingers during a movie night, he knows-

Something twinges in his temples, vaguely painful, a familiar warmth rushes through him, and the Mechanic shakes his head. “You are an enemy of Hydra,” he says, his voice rough with disuse. “I cannot obey you.”

The woman halts, something like horror flashing through her eyes before her face shuts down again. She strides toward him, and her confidence makes the Mechanic hesitate, his deeply ingrained respect of authority holding him frozen as she grabs his arm firmly (though, surprisingly, not painfully). She marches him down the hallway without a further word to him.

They turn around a corner and into a squad of soldiers. The Mechanic opens his mouth, to cry out a warning, to call for help, something, but the woman pushes them both back around the corner, into shelter, just before half a dozen bullets punch into the wall behind where they’d be standing. The Mechanic stares at one of the marks, recognizes it from one of his own guns, and realizes that it would have gone straight through his stomach.

They would have healed him, of course, they always do after they hurt him, but the realization is sobering. He’s still coming to terms with it as the woman leans around the corner, firing her own gun. Less than a minute later, she pulls at him again, escorting him through the bodies and down the hallway.

The Mechanic hears a light burst of static, tinny words he can’t make out, and the woman presses a finger to a tiny comm device in her ear. “Roger that. I have Stark we’re on our way to the rendezvous point.” She glances over at the Mechanic, hesitation flashing over her face before she speaks again. “It’s… not very good. You’ll see. Black Widow out.”

He recognizes that name, realizes that he’s currently being led down the winding corridors by one of Hydra’s greatest enemies. This, finally, makes the Mechanic act. He yanks his arm from her grip, and the combination of her surprise and his increased strength actually sets him free.

“I cannot go with you,” he says again, more firmly. “You are an enemy of Hydra.” The Black Widow rolls her eyes, clearly exasperated, and the Mechanic takes the brief moment of inattention to lunge back down the hallway, towards one of the bodies she’d left behind. It’s a matter of moments to pull the gun out of the man’s limp grasp, spin around, and aim the weapon unerringly towards the Black Widow’s head. His hands are steady, his aim impeccable, and chemicals rush through him, keeping him calm and focused. He knows this gun, designed every inch of it, knows how to fire it.

She’s staring at him, eyes narrowed, from only a few feet away from. The Mechanic braces himself for an attack, but she doesn’t move. She speaks.

“Tony.” The name is low, calm. “You don’t want to do this. I’m your friend, you know me.” A burst of confusion sweeps through the Mechanic, followed by a wave of almost painful heat.

He shakes his head, stubborn. “No, I don’t. You’re the Black Widow, an enemy of Hydra.”

“I’m your friend. We fight on the Avengers together, or did.” She steps forward, carefully. The Mechanic’s hands are shaking. “You were abducted half a year ago. We’ve been searching for you ever since.”

“No,” the Mechanic says, his voice hoarse. “I don’t know you. You’re an enemy of Hydra.”

His head hurts.

The Black Widow’s lips twist, something that looks like sorrow crossing her face. “You are my friend. And I’m sorry for this.”

The Mechanic frowns. “Sorry for wh-”

She strikes.

The Mechanic manages to get off a shot, hears a soft grunt as it impacts, but then everything's a blur of movement and rough hands. When it settles, he’s on his back, hands locked behind him, his head aching.

“Let’s go,” the Black Widow says, and hauls him upright. The Mechanic hangs his head as pain shoots through his temples with every throb of his heart, and lets her drag him where she will.


	3. Chapter 3

  
The Black Widow drags him down the hallway, and the Mechanic follows easily. Everything feels strangely blurred. She takes down any forces they run into with ease, despite the deep cut carved into her shoulder by his wild shot. The Mechanic watches blankly, his head throbbing with every beat of his heart.

Finally, they stop in what the Mechanic distantly recognizes as a hangar. There’s a woman waiting for them, and her brown eyes widen as she takes them in. “What happened?” Her voice is accented, russian or something close to it. The Mechanic doesn’t care.

“He’s not himself,” the Black Widow says grimly. “He shot me.”

The woman’s hand flies up to cover her mouth. “Oh.”

The Black Widow nodded and glanced around the hangar. “Where’s T’Challa?”

“On his way,” the other woman says, her eyes still on the Mechanic. “He ran into some-” She’s cut off as the Mechanic groans lowly, dropping his head as pain flashes through his head. Something about that name-

He groans again as the pain grows worse, hot knives in the tender flesh of his brain, and blinks back involuntary tears.

“What’s happening?” The woman asks, worried.

“I don’t know,” the Black Widow’s voice is terse, and her hand tightens a little around the Mechanic’s arm. “I think it might have to do with whatever they did to make him forget us.”

The Mechanic resolutely thinks about nothing, and slowly the pain fades. He looks up again just as a door on the far side of the hangar slams open.

A figure sprints towards them, his features covered by a black catsuit and strange metal claws flashing at his sides as he runs. “We must go,” the figure calls out, their voice muffled by the mask. “This base has a self-destruct function. One of their scientists activated it before I could stop her. We have about three minutes.”

The Black Widow nods sharply and breaks away from them, running towards the nearest jet. The Mechanic watches her go, and almost misses it as this new enemy reaches them. He turns back just in time to watch the figure freeze, masked eyes locked on him.

“Tony?” they ask, voice hushed with something like hope.

The Mechanic frowns and pulls at the cuffs keeping his hands trapped. This is get irritating. “Who is that?”

The masked enemy just stare at him for a long moment before they slowly reach up. Their mask clicks and they pull it off.

The Mechanic freezes as he meets deep brown eyes. Images hit him almost painfully, and he falls under the waves of them.

T’Challa finds him collapsed over his lab table and gently shakes him awake. “You shouldn’t push yourself so hard,” he says, gently reprimanding.

Tony yawns and rubs at his stinging eyes. “I’m still dealing with the fallout of that shitstorm, babe, you know that.”

T’Challa sighs but doesn’t try to argue. “You’ve earned some time to sleep in a real bed, though.” He tugs lightly at Tony’s wrist and smiles at him. “Come to bed.”

Tony grins. “How can I turn you down?”

The Mechanic groans, hunching his shoulders and pulling desperately at the metal cuffs. It hurts, oh god, it hurts, a million knives stabbing at his temples, a hot brand pressed to his brain, indescribable pain. He hears concerned shouts but can’t make out what they’re saying as another memory washes over him.

He finds T’Challa in the gardens, sitting across from the tree they’d planted in remembrance of T’Chakka. It’s an ancient breed, one that’ll grow large and strong for centuries to come. There’s a watering can next to his knee and tears in his eyes, and Tony sits next to him. For a moment they just sit in silence. Then T’Challa lets out a shuddering sigh and leans into Tony, and Tony wraps an arm around his shoulders and lets him cry.

He’s collapsed, the Mechanic realizes distantly, his knees cracking against the hard concrete floor.

T’Challa smiling, reaching over to wipe a stray drop of maple syrup from Tony’s goatee.

T’Challa incensed, yelling at Rogers as Tony silently watches, because how dare he, how dare he leave Tony alone and injured with a broken suit in the middle of nowhere.

T’Challa, cool and distant over a video screen as Tony asks him, begs him, to help him as Ross throws terms like “traitor” and “maximum-security confinement” around.

T’Challa, soft and pliant in the early morning, his smile gentle as he strokes a hand through Tony’s hair.

The Mechanic blinks open wet eyes to find himself half cradled by leather-clad arms. T’Challa looks down at him, and his mouth is moving but the Mechanic can’t make out the words, and it’s too much, the pain in his head is too much for any man to withstand, and everything goes black.

* * *

The Mechanic wakes.

He’s lying on something soft, he’s warm and comfortable, and his mind is silent.

This is strange.

Slowly, he cracks his eyes open, wary even of the dimmed light of his surroundings. He squints around, recognizes a small room, a host of beeping machines squatting near the bed, takes in the shape of a chair a few feet away. In the near-darkness of the room, the Mechanic sees the man slumped in it.

His breathing speeds up, his heartbeat spikes in remembered pain, and one of the machines begins to wail. The man jerks awake, and the Mechanic sees him quickly scan the room before looking towards him.

“Tony,” he says, a gasp, and there is no pain.

“What’s going on?” The Mechanic asks, then flinches. It’s not his place to ask questions.

No pain comes, and the Mechanic is desperately confused.

“You’re home,” the man - T’Challa, he remembers - says, and he reaches forward to grasp the Mechanic’s hand. “You’re free.”

“I-” The Mechanic shakes his head. “I don’t understand.” He’s confused and tired but there is no pain. He looks down at his hand, small and pale in T’Challa’s, and it feels right and the Mechanic doesn’t understand.

T’Challa is watching him, and he looks so sad. “I know, Tony. I know this doesn’t make any sense. It’s okay, we’ll take care of you now.”

The Mechanic doesn’t understand, but he is tired and it’s so easy to sink back into the strange sensation of pillows and fall asleep.

* * *

The woman is in the chair the next time the Mechanic wakes, the young one with long brown hair. She’s watching him carefully and the Mechanic stares back.

“T’Challa is in a meeting,” she breaks the silence first. “He’ll be back soon, but he asked if I could help.”

“Help with what?”

The woman leans forward. “I am Wanda, and you are Tony Stark. He’s asked me to help you remember that.”

The Mechanic doesn’t know if he wants to remember, but it is not in his nature to protest. “Okay.”

She nods and something red and glowing appears in her hands. “You can go back to sleep for this part.”

“Okay.”

* * *

When the Mechanic drifts to awareness again, it’s to voices.

“-the memories are still there, but he can’t reach them.” It’s the woman, Wanda.

“We’ve flushed the chemicals out of his system,” T’challa. “What else can we do?”

“This is not Hydra’s work anymore.” A hesitation. “I think he is afraid. For months, any attempt to access his memories has resulted in excruciating pain. His subconscious is unwilling to remember, in fear of more pain.”

T’Challa sighs, and the Mechanic feels the gentle brush of fingers through his hair. It’s nice. “We shall have to help him, then.”

Wanda murmurs her agreement, and the Mechanic slips back into sleep.

* * *

The Mechanic is introduced to a veritable parade of people over the next week. There’s Rhodey, the black man that sits at his bedside for hours, telling stories of crazy escapades at MIT that the Mechanic doesn’t remember. There’s Steve, who shuffles his feet and spouts apologies that the Mechanic doesn’t understand. He recognizes him, but only as Captain America, Hydra’s greatest nemesis.

There’s others, the redhead that extracted him from Hydra, Natasha, and a grinning blond man named Clint. They bring him something called a hamburger that tastes absolutely amazing. Food is a novelty for him, now, full of taste and texture when the Mechanic is accustomed to protein-packed paste. Clint jokes that the Mechanic is way better at eating consistently than he ever was before. The Mechanic just stares at him blankly, and Natasha watches him with sad eyes as she reminds him how to use a fork. 

Sam Wilson sits with him for a few hours and he doesn’t try to make the Mechanic remember, but he tells him stories from his life and the plots of movies that the Mechanic doesn’t remember and it’s surprisingly nice. Wanda comes in frequently, and the Mechanic knows he’s trying to help him remember, but nothing seems to work. They care more about it than the Mechanic does, though. He’s pretty confused still, but it’s nice to have food that tastes like something and a bed to sleep in and outside of his window there’s something that Sam calls a garden that’s nice to look at.

T’Challa visits him the most, whenever he can. Sometimes he talks, telling the Mechanic stories from their supposed life together or recounting second-hand accounts of Iron Man and Tony Stark’s life. Sometimes the Mechanic feels a flash of something, like the stories are from a book he read years ago and faintly remembers the plot line of, but it’s distant and removed.

Sometimes T’Challa is silent, just sitting with him, and the Mechanic’s mind is blissfully quiet as he watches the garden.

“I was going to ask you to marry me,” T’Challa breaks the silence one evening, and the Mechanic turns from watching a butterfly fluttering about the flowers to watch him quietly. T’Challa smiles at him, small and sad, and the Mechanic blinks at him.

“Why don’t you?” The words come almost without his permission, and the Mechanic shakes his head, confused at himself.

T’Challa stares at him, wide-eyed with shock. “I-” He trails off, obviously lost for words.

The Mechanic remembers, suddenly, a box in his bedside drawer in New York City, a precious secret waiting for the right moment. “I was going to ask you,” he says, and his voice sounds strange, with none of the light German accent he’d picked up. “I had a ring and everything.”

“Why don’t you?” T’Challa whispers, and the Mechanic leans forward and kisses him.

T’Challa gasps under it, uncharacteristically reserved, the Mechanic pushes forward, presses himself against the firm planes of a familiar body and T’Challa surges forward, powerful and passionate and all the things he loves about T’Challa. They kiss, lit by the light of a setting sun, until they calm to light brushes of lip against lip, shared breath in this moment between themselves.

Tony leans back finally and grins at T’Challa. “I knew you’d come for me.”

T’Challa makes a choked sound, somewhere between a sob and a laugh, and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find more IronPanther at ImagineIronPanther or myself at [my tumblr!](http://anthonyfuckingstark.tumblr.com)
> 
>  _ubuti_ : brother  
>  _sithwanda_ : (my) love
> 
> Feedback is cherished.


End file.
